The # 1 reason why emerging franchisors do not grow: We did the research, and we were surprised by the key reason why emerging franchisors weren’t growing. There are a lot of reasons why franchise brands under 10 units don’t expand:
- The wrong model
- The wrong focus
- The lack of knowledge of franchising
- The lack of knowledge how to sell franchises;
- Their franchisees don’t make enough money
- The franchisor is under capitalized
I could go on.
But the one thing we found that stood out loud and clear as the # 1 reason? Fear.
Not general fear, but ONE fear, above all else:
Fear of spending their finite budget for lead generation in the wrong places.
We developed Discipline # 1 of The Hartify Method for Franchise Sales to take away this fear so that emerging franchisors can get on with scaling their impact and not worry about wasting precious capital.
The Find a Friend in Every City Discipline includes:
- Our Deep Dive Process to shine a light on the “gems” inside your brand. An effective lead generation program always begins with finding and focusing on key information that is going to differentiate you and sell to the right prospects. Our Deep Dive process uncovers the gems and valuable information from your company to craft our advertising strategy. This is why the ordinary ad firm can’t compete with us – they simply cannot achieve our level of understanding of the magic behind your brand and how to use it to recruit new franchise partners.
- A full description of The Right Person to target. We then take this information and put it through our 5 -Step “Persona Building” program, where we identify the characteristics of your targeted franchise sales prospects. Why? Because if you don’t execute fully on this step of the lead generation process, you will waste a lot of money.
- Now that we know WHO we are targeting to buy a franchise, it’s time to pick the Right Strategy. We will lay out possible lead generation strategies, and then select the right ones for you. (Hint: Our primary strategy will be digital marketing).
- The Right Budget. At this size, almost everyone has similar budget restrictions (little money to spend). We will optimize your spend to deliver the highest output for the fewest dollars. We will also help you find the money to spend on lead generation. This will include the right plan as you grow for how to accelerate sales when you start to have a bit more capital to spend.
- Write the Right Copy. At this stage, it’s ad copy time. We will work with our partner agencies to craft 3-4 ads that are geared for franchise sales. We know the copy, we know the messaging, we know what works to drive the highest quality leads at the lowest cost per lead. In other words, this step alone will save you a ton of money. As part of this process, we will also make website copy suggestions.
- Our team will help execute your Franchise Lead Generation strategy. We Work in collaboration with our Digital Partner to manage your AdWords, Facebook and LinkedIn digital campaigns. This will include managing the ins and outs to ensure that we are optimizing:
- Monthly metrics scoreboard
- Monthly pipeline reviews
- Monthly strategy tweaks
THE SECOND DISCIPLINE: Authentic Automation
It’s amazing how many brands think they can sell a product for hundreds of thousands of dollars with just a couple of phone calls and emails, trying to close the deal as fast as they can. But franchise sales don’t work this way. Instead, they usually take months and months of conversations, learning, research and diligence. There are often a few bumps along the way (refer back to the introduction of this page for common examples).
The great franchise brands have built superb franchise sales and development systems to set them free and put them on the path to rapid growth.
We developed Discipline # 2 of The Hartify Method for Franchise Sales to pave the way for Emerging Franchisors to close more deals with the leads they generate, in the most efficient way possible. Plus, we never want you to have to rely on a franchise sales person for your franchise sales knowledge again.
The Authentic Automation Discipline will hardwire a robust process so your prospects get the right information at the right time. We will:
- Build a discovery process for each prospect that is built to convert a franchise buyer at every step;
- Break up the timeline into bite-sized pieces so that your candidate is continuously learning at a pace that suits them and is constantly moving forward;
- Develop a storytelling journey that works to “pull” your candidate through the process and over the hurdles they will inevitably face in the journey to buy a franchise;
- Develop the right mix of content, materials, conversations and tools to deeply engage a franchise candidate in a rich learning and research process;
- Script the process to overcome objections and the major sticking points within making a franchise sale;
- Capture the essence of the Founder without having the Founder be the key driver of the sales process;
- Automate every step of the way so you deliver the same franchise sales experience to candidate after candidate (because consistency works) and work through more leads at a faster rate.
The result will be a powerful franchise sales and development process that will enable you to achieve far higher conversion rates on your leads. This will allow you to spend less money on lead generation and sales people.
Perhaps most of all, our coaching will allow you to be an expert in franchise sales conversions, and have a system within your organization that lives on past any one, individual salesperson.
THE THIRD DISCIPLINE: TELL A STELLAR STORY
If authentic automation was the science – now meet the art. Everybody hates being sold to, but everybody loves a good story.
In franchise sales, you are actually selling a story, not just a franchise – so start by uncovering your company’s stellar story. We go deep on your brand and founder narrative to isolate what makes your concept special. We then design a compelling story arc that provides the roadmap for the sales process – and captivates prospects. Understand that you are not just competing with brands within your vertical: you are competing with every franchise system out there.
We break this into two parts:
Your Brand Story
Let’s draw out the compelling storyline of your company’s existence to date.
The Stories Within Your Brand Story
There are so many stories “within” the story. We pinpoint, formulate and tell these stories to help you overcome objections, deal with challenges, show opportunities and inspire (we then use these throughout our authentic automation process.)
This is the creative part. We take our deep dive into the metrics of your business and all of the insights we have gleaned from our intense interview process to learn everything we can about your marketing, your operations, your technology and your franchise program. Then we fashion a story and determine positioning in your market space that will make you stand out.